Page:History of the Radical Party in Parliament.djvu/72

58 with faith in and devotion to the cause of popular liberty as to be able to look beyond the violence and confusion of the day, to a future in which great principles must triumph over temporary obstacles. The time was one, indeed, in which, on both sides, there were manifested the passion which is born of political excitement, and the violence which springs from terror. Timid people might be excused if, in such a mad world, they clung with desperation to existing authority as the only protection to society against revolution and anarchy. It was indeed a fire in which to try the temper of men and nations. The revolutionary clubs and associations of reformers were undistinguished by the opponents of all change, the voluntary suppressors of sedition, the friends of "Church and King," and by every class and grade of the official world. It was at this time—the end of 1792 and the beginning of 1793—that many of the old Whigs followed Burke in his hatred of France, his resistance to reform, and his support of the most coercive measures of the Government. Windham, who was one of the first to leave his old party, became one of the most bitter of their foes. Lord Loughborough, whom the Whigs had intended to make Lord Chancellor if the regency had not been arrested by the recovery of the King, took that office under Pitt, on the enforced retirement of Thurlow. The Duke of Portland himself joined the deserters from the army which he had nominally commanded, and he was accompanied or followed by Grenville, Lords Spencer, Sheffield, Carlisle, and Fitzwilliam, and Sir Gilbert Elliott.

There was, in fact, no party left in the House of Lords, and in the Commons from forty to fifty votes were the most that Fox and his friends could muster in a division. We have seen that only fifty members voted against the address to the Crown, on the opening of Parliament on the 13th of December, 1792; and when, on the 30th of January following, ministers announced the death of Louis, the withdrawal of ambassadors, and the virtual declaration of war with France, it was hopeless even to take a division. This position was fairly represented by the vote on Mr. Grey's motion in favour